Battle Creek, Michigan, hosted the 12th World Hot Air Balloon Championship July
1-9. This was third time for the championship to be contested in the Cereal City. The
championship was held here in 1981 and 1985. The event opened under sunny, blue
skies and pleasant temperatures.Including Fiesta Flyers more than 175 pilots, including 86 competitors representing 32 countries, converged on the very spacious W. K. Kellogg Airport surrounded by a land of much greenery and many lakes in south central Michigan. The area's lakes were carved by glaciers a long time ago leaving lovely rolling hills.
Together with other festival entertainment the Championship had one of the largest airshows in the United States. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds with their spectacular mushroom formation ascent followed by the breathtaking convergent navigational trajectory recombination at treetop level, Jim Franklin's Wing Walking on a biplane to almost every part of the plane, Bud Light's Micro Jets (world's smallest jets), several different spectacular Aerobatic planes ( a few even appeared to fly tail-first momentarily), and the Canadian Skyhawks parachute team. Other festival entertainment included Les Shockley's triple-engine jet truck which reached speeds of 300+ mph, the Budweiser Clydesdales eight-horse hitch to a 1903 Studebaker-built beer wagon as ''"Mikey'' the Dalmation dog roamed through the crowd, a large carnival with several Ferris wheels, The Fuji Blimp, an Arts & Crafts Festival with over 100 dealers, 10-year-old singer Kristin Collins who sang the opening National Anthem and performed July 7 during the spectacular Balloon Illume from the tethered balloon Tony the Tiger with Dennis Floden, and three $50,000 Grucci Fireworks displays.
The organizing body, with an operations staff of about 100 people, is a non-profit corporation having about 3,000 volunteers and an operating budget of $1.2 million dollars. Kellogg Cereal Company, headquartered in Battle Creek, was the major sponsor with about 20 other sponsors. The crowd swelled to 175,000 on Sunday of the first weekend, July 2, and again on Saturday of the second weekend, July 8.
Seven of the nine previous world champions appeared at the event including Alan Blount, David Levin, and Benedikt Haggeney (Germany) as competitors; Denny Floden, who flew Tony the Tiger, Al Nels, who won this years Fiesta Flyers Competition and a cash prize of $2,500, and Bruce Comstock (Cameron USA) and Peter Vizzard (Thunder Colt USA) of Australia as brief visitors. Three people have attended all 12 World Championships: Janne Balkedal, competitor from Sweden; Dick Stamberg, Balloon Life Photographer; and Jim Winker, former President of Raven Industries Balloon Operations.
One sighting out of the Old West surprised a few pilots and crews who spotted a buffalo several times over the opening weekend. "Bubba" the buffalo had escaped Friday evening from Buffalo "Bill" Barkers barn to start roaming the range. Bubba roamed for three days until Joe Gauthier's balloon chase crew spotted the 13-month- old North American Buffalo along Interstate Highway 94 about 8 a.m. Monday morning, headed for Chicago. The Battle Creek zoo assisted in capturing Bubba after he tied up traffic on the interstate for several miles.
Pilots endured 25 tasks and 10 pilot briefings (9 flights with one cancellation) through July 7 (Friday evening). Event Director Jim Birk called four flights with 4 tasks each during the week. The balance of the flights being one, two or three tasks each. Tasks were set for the conditions expected to develop, as opposed to conditions that existed at briefing time.
Sunday mornings flight was again 4 tasks with a fly-in to the airport target in a light breeze. David Levin stressed the importance of picking up markers dropped before the last one because of coordinates written on them. Sunday evening was a maximum distance task with a mass ascent from the airport followed by the Fiesta Flyers intermingling as the breeze subsided. Monday mornings flight was 3 tasks in a steady high wind close to the surface. The first target was on an island in Sonoma Lake. Monday evenings flight was 2 tasks with the first being a fly-in to the airport. Jim Birk then had pilots pick one of two targets north of town - one "x" was in Sunshine Gardens, a nudist resort, and the other was at Bedford Valley Golf Course.
Tuesday mornings flight had 4 tasks in overcast weather. Pilots flew one task (#16) to a judge declared goal at the airport where Harold Graves dropped his balloon from about 1,500 feet (pilots needed high altitude to get the wind direction they needed) to a few feet from the target to hurl his baggie onto the target and win the task with 1000 points. Only 22 pilots were within the limited scoring area. One pilot even dropped his baggie from 6,000 feet AGL. It was reported that a baggie was lost in a swamp and that 35 people were looking for it. A helicopter was even put into service but couldn't locate the marker. Tuesday's evening flight was canceled due to a threat of severe thunderstorms.
Wednesday morning was weathered out. A picnic on Thompson Island in Gognac Lake allowed pilots and crew to relax and mingle with rain starting to fall at the end of the picnic. Task 19 was Wednesday evening with strong winds in a Pilot Declared Goal from the airport. Thursday was a rest day because of high winds and bad weather but an Ice Cream Social at the city zoo provided a nice break.
Friday morning was gray with high winds. Jim Birk called a long, complicated 4-task flight which included scoring by measuring the area of a triangle whose points are determined by marker drops. The last competition flight arrived Friday evening with only 99 points between Phil Glebe and Joe Heartsill. It was windy again with two tasks - a Pilot Declared Goal and a Fly-On task. Pilots were forced to make quick, last minute decisions because of a 30-degree wind shift only minutes after the pilots lifted off.
During the week of competition, Alan Blount, defending world champion, started out in the lead. Phil Glebe took the lead after 12 tasks were completed and held it until the last flight. Then Joe Heartsill surprised many at the awards banquet by winning, having moved from 6th to 3rd place after 18 tasks. The last tasks were not announced until just before the banquet. Alan Blount said, "Joe is consistent and he is focused".
Joe Heartsill, age 44 from San Angelo, Texas, fell in love with ballooning at Albuquerque in 1979 while on vacation with his wife Nancy. He also saw the potential for advertising his real estate business and began training by trying to inflate his balloon in a 25-knot wind. Nancy has faithfully been his crew chief ever since, although she says she is retiring after this event. Joe hopes that his family will again crew at the next World Championship in Saga.
The USA team (twelve pilots) again had a team-coordinator, Dave Shack. His efforts helped the USA team win the top 3 places, and 6 out of the top 10 places with Phil Glebe 2nd, David Levin 3rd, Alan Blount 5th, Bill Cunningham 7th, and Harold Graves 8th. Teamwork by other countries also played a part. Uwe Schneider of Germany placed a strong fourth, Lindsay Muir (the only lady competitor in the World this year) of the United Kingdom placed 6th, David Bareford also of the United Kingdom placed 9th, and Henk Broeders of Netherlands was 10th.
Fiesta Flyers had fewer flights and also flew in high winds. I was given the opportunity to fly with Ivan Kerr (#140 with 2000 hours pilot-in-command) on Monday morning (July 3) when steady winds reached about 20 to 30 mph above 100 feet. In a carefully planned flight lasting only 15 minutes, we flew from the shelter of trees and high grass near I-94 to the Airport target just when Al Nels arrived in front of us. Both balloons were about 50 feet above ground level as we approached the target from a distance of 200 feet. Al went up to about 100 feet for a small direction correction and then with excellent precision swooped to a few feet just above the target to drop the marker directly on the center with amazing grace. The crowd cheered as the brisk breeze moved us along and we prepared for a landing at a nearby sheltered parking lot. This flight showed what champions are made of and helped win him the Fiesta Flyers competition and a nice cash prize. Al Nels wants to be back on the USA team in Saga!
After the Saturday noon banquet on July 8, a 10th flight was scheduled as a "Card Game of 21" in which over 100 pilots participated. A standard card deck of 52 cards (3 X 5 feet) were laid out on the Airport competition field for a fly-in. I wish to thank Harold Graves, who won 8th place in the World, for a wonderful flight in partly cloudy skies and a light breeze to a sun-filled airport with about 175,000 spectators. Alan Blount came closest with one baggie on an Ace but only a ribbon on the jack so he didn't win the $1,500 prize. We continued on to the next open field where many balloons landed in a farewell to Battle Creek. It was a nice ending to a beautiful week.
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